Despite being a relative misnomer, the term Can lit does have its loose parameters, at least as far as public perception is concerned. Open spaces. Prairies. Cold. Boring. Pastoral shit. Where and how this odd reputation came to be (I'll sidestep the obvious reference) is unclear, but for small-press kids, lit-bums and art-losers, there is a whole realm of fiction outside of the typical Can lit criterion, outside of genre, gender, and grammar restrictions. This stuff has been festering in communities that still, technically, fall under the Can lit umbrella, though somehow, distinctively, fall outside of the realm of big-budget publishing and large-scale public awareness. It's not Can lit, it's Can't lit, or at least that's what the weirdos at Broken Pencil Magazine - who have been shoveling out the freakish fiction from this outer realm of lit since 1995 - are calling it, and they've got a whole book of it just waiting to bend your dimensions.

Can't Lit: Fearless Fiction from Broken Pencil Magazine is the latest anthology from the BP outcast team, featuring the fiction BP has been scouting out and publishing for the last decade and a half; the gritty, ugly, misshapen tales of indie nerds and weird writers. Edited by the Assistant fiction editor of the mag, Richard Rosenbaum, Can't Lit features a ridiculous rag-bag of short stories that do not, in any way, resemble the cool, taut precision of typical Can lit fame. In his foreword, founder and current Fiction Editor Hal Niedzviecki explains the anti-aesthetic of the selected prose, saying "By and large, they read ragged, lacking the refinements of metaphor, magical realism, and perfect epiphany of the prairies. A few of them might even be badly written. On purpose? By accident? Who really gives a fuck? This is Broken Pencil. We're not trying to win awards, launch the writers Oprah wants you to read, or really do anything at all. The words do the work."

And work they do, in bizarre and sometimes puzzling ways, entirely outside of the typical limits of literary legitimation. Some stories brim on microfiction, such as Craig Sernotti's Another Young Lust Story, or Christoph Meyer's The Sweet Taste of Slavery, both weighing in at a lean half page, but both packing a heavy arsenal of dark existential humour and allegorical weight. Others focus on the lives of outsider characters, like Josh Byer's Rats, Homosex, Saunas and Simon, or Grant Buday's Retard. Still others are just hilariously written, such as Charlie Anders' Yes Man, which starts with the line "Juan put a Flintstones toothbrush up his ass in the parking lot behind the Westview mall in daylight because some boys told him to" (147), or Joey Comeau's Giraffes and Everything, which grabs the reader with the line "George woke up and remembered that he remembered giraffes existed" (97). Weird.

Boasting a brilliant miscellany of styles, topics and degrees of expertise, Can't lit proves to be a fun read that is both intriguingly inclusive, and a stark contrast to any formal understanding of what constitutes Canadian literature.

"If you looked at the shortlist for the Giller Prize and rolled your eyes, you'll probably love this" the editor of the anthology, Richard Rosenbaum, e-intimates to me on his way to Montreal this month. "That said, there's such a variety of styles and subjects represented in Can't Lit that I think anyone will find something that speaks to them.

"We hope it will expose these writers to a Canadian reading public that's grown jaded at the perceived dullness and irrelevance of contemporary mainstream Can lit. There's a lot of awesome writing out there too, you just have to know where to look for it."

Erupting with the sincerity and earnestness of amateur writers and established outcasts alike, Can't lit is definitely worth the twenty bucks that I didn't have to pay for it. In a publishing season that is flooded with anthologies - even one from us SB kids, what the %@#$? - Can't lit stands out for everything that BP has represented for years: unabridged, unadulterated independent talent from the wide and weird margins of the Canadian art community. It's not about artistry, artistic progression, innovation, or even talent. It's about the stories themselves, as separate entities. "Something has to happen in a story, and it has to mean something - to the characters, the readers, and the author" Richard contends. "We like weird."

So, if you're of the persuasion that Can lit totally sucks, this anthology is for you. It's weird and fun and absolutely fearless of convention and perception; just unabashedly crude and nerdy. I loved it. It was released this month as part of ECW Press' fall catalog, so pick up a copy if you feel like it and support a cause that writes in the margins.